Posted by
Playful Walrus on Monday, November 10, 2008 7:21:14 PM
If we know why, we might be able to more of them to vote Republican. Of course, this presumes that the Republican they would be voting for would be somewhat conservative, libertarian, or federalist - have some form of limited government philosophy. Yes, I know that there are some conservative Democrats out there, but even a liberal Republican can help in that the majority party in a legislature gets an advantage, such as in committee appointments, and if most of the Republicans are of the limited government sort, then the liberal Republican can’t do too much harm.
Let me get out of the way right now that I don’t deny there are people who largely vote Republican for some of the same reasons listed. That’s fine - their votes can help even if they weren’t for the right reason. Also, I'm not saying that these are the only reasons someone would vote Democrat.
Some people vote Democrat because...
- They’re registered Democrats and always have been and are never going to change. It probably isn’t worth the effort to get such people to switch. They may be part of the Democrat power structure and simply aren’t going to give it up.
- They want to push the government Leftward. These people are probably not going to vote Republican, but it may be worth it to encourage them to vote for a third party candidate instead of the Democrat.
- There was a Democrat President or other figure they liked. These people can be switched. There are people who have fond memories of JFK. However, we can show them that Republicans today have more in common with his political stances than the Democrat leadership of today. People give Bill Clinton too much credit for the economy of the 1990s, and it can be demonstrated that a Republican Congress helped, and that the private sector did the heavy lifting despite – not because of – Bill Clinton. One of the dangers of Obama is that he’s young and presumably will be around for years to encourage those who voted for him based on his perceived personality to keep voting Democrat. I’ve already blogged about how to turn some of his voters.
- They think the Republicans are corrupt or nasty. Some of us are. But it isn't too hard to demonstrate that Democrats are at least as, if not more corrupt or nasty, and it is easy to demonstrate that Republicans force corrupt Republicans out of power much more readily. It will help if the GOP continues to hold members publicly accountable, and help even more if Republicans stay out of trouble to begin with.
- Some Republican - politician or personal acquaintance - turned them off. Unfortunately, some Democrat voters think of people in groups, and it is guilt by association for them. Just think of how many Democrat voters Nixon created with Watergate alone. It can be hard to turn these people. It is easier to be proactive – being good ambassadors as Republicans so that we don’t turn them off to begin with.
- They are single-issue voters, such as with abortion. These people can only be turned if we draw them away from a fixation on a single issue. With abortion, though I think it is murder, I highly doubt that even with the right SCOTUS, we're going to see abortion effectively banned. A few states may place some restrictions on it, but "health of the mother", technology and travel are going to make preventing abortions difficult. Although I do not believe there is a right to an abortion, we're going to significantly reduce the number of abortions only be reaching the hearts of each generation and instilling a respect for life in them. This does not mean we should give up standing up for life in elections.
- They think they need some government program/assistance to survive and thrive. Anyone receiving any form of "public assistance" is susceptible to falling into this trap – welfare, grants, loans, and so on. Anyone who has used the government to wrest something from a current or former employer or landlord. That’s a lot of people. Members of labor unions are constantly told by their leaders that Democrats will bring them higher pay, better benefits, and better working conditions. For these people, it is important to appeal to their sense of self-worth and their personal talents and desire for self-determination. It may mean steering them towards private assistance, and it might take the people who administer such assistance insisting that their beneficiaries refuse public assistance. Just imagine if we stepped up to wean people from public assistance and got them to vote for limited government as a result.
We need to know why people who vote voted Democrat so that we can get some of them to our side. If they are already voting, they're halfway there. I'll get to more of that in subsequent blog entries.